The Witch of Little Italy

by Suzanne Palmieri

  “No,” said Elly. “I feel as if I’ve already graduated. Moved on from that life. Even commuting was surreal. Go to the studio, leave. I felt invisible.”

  Fee laughed.

  “What?” asked Elly, a smile growing inside of her, Fee’s laughter was so contagious.

  “You were invisible,” said Fee.

  “You witches and your spells! How did you manage that? Slip me an invisibility cloak or something?”

  Mimi walked out into the sunshine and placing her hands against her round sides, stretched her back. “No. Nothing like that. It was you Elly. You did it.”

  “What? What did I do?”

  “You wished yourself invisible and so became invisible. The world sees what we want it to see. It’s the same for everyone, really. It’s just we … Mama’s children … and you, too … we notice the magical nuances of life.”

  Elly stood up. “Okay. Then here is my wish to the universe. I wish Aunt Itsy would tell me her secret. And I wish that Liz would come over so we could sit around and be lazy. And I really wish that kid in our walls would stop crying! Those are my graduation wishes.”

  Mimi went to her and hugged her close. Elly was growing so fond of Mimi’s smells. Garlic and perfume and bleach.

  “Well, I guarantee you a visit from Liz. But Itsy? She won’t spill her beans. Not even for you,” said Mimi.

  “Okay, then what about the crying kid?”

  “That’s your problem,” said Fee. “We can’t hear it.”

  “You can’t hear anything,” said Elly quietly so Fee couldn’t hear her.

  Mimi laughed. “You’re so bad!”

  “I’m learning,” said Elly.

  * * *

  With the gardening done, and Mimi and the aunts out shopping, Elly walked around the side of the building lazily, letting her fingers dance across the brick and mortar. She looked at her hands, fingernails blackened with garden soil. Stepping over a few low bushes growing in the narrow space between 170th Street and its neighbor, she walked out into the light. Liz was sitting on the front stoop.

  “That was fast,” said Elly.

  “Come again?” asked Liz.

  Elly lowered herself slowly down on the stoop. She was getting bigger by the day and it was hard to keep her balance. Liz put out a hand for support.

  “Well, a little while ago I was pruning roses and getting a lesson on things we wish into the universe. And I was wishing you’d come by and we could spend the rest of the day just lazing around. And here you are!”

  “The sun is strong for this time of year. It’s going to be a hot summer,” said Liz.

  Elly looked at her friend. She seemed pale and tired. Her energy so different from the rambunctious girl she’d met in the snowy garden.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m fine. Just a little world-weary. Let’s go inside and be lazy, like you wished. Okay?”

  “Yes! Let’s!” said Elly.

  They headed to Elly’s bedroom where she changed into light pajamas—a deliciously indolent thing to do in the afternoon—and the two sat on her bed and painted their toenails red while listening to Carmen’s old records.

  “This is so much fun,” said Elly.

  “What?”

  “Laying around and listening to records. I never had a girlfriend growing up.”

  “You always had me,” said Liz.

  “I didn’t remember you.”

  “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t with you. Sometimes heads and hearts don’t communicate so good, you know?”

  “I do know. Like today … I knew Carmen wouldn’t call. But I wanted her to. I tried wishing her to. But even if my head thought she might, my heart felt she wouldn’t. Is it better to listen to your heart?”

  “Always! The only problem is the heart is quiet. It takes a very special kind of person to hear what the heart says. Most can’t hear it at all and they have to guess. There are a lot of people walking around just guessing.”

  They moved side by side, stretching their legs out so the box fan in the window could blow their toes dry. Elly turned her head on the cool cotton pillow to face Liz, whose eyes were closed.

  “I’m afraid,” said Elly.

  Liz’s eyes fluttered open. “About what?” She reached out her hand to tuck some of Elly’s stray hair, loose from her messy bun, behind her ears.

  Elly reached up and held Liz’s hand to her face. She closed her eyes and tried to think of a way to put her fear into words that would make sense. The emotions ran high now that most of her memories were coming back. It was easier not to remember. Before the memories there’d been a wall, tall and high all around her. It kept Elly from herself and her feelings. It kept her safe, in its way. And as that wall crumbled she was afraid to see what lay beyond. It could be a magical garden like the one blooming in the back of the building. Or it could be blackness—the blackness she saw every time she placed her hands on her belly and tried to dream of a moment in the future with her child.

  “I’m afraid my baby is going to die,” she said, picking the deepest, realest fear.

  “Why on earth are you afraid of that? Your baby is just fine.” reassured Liz. But Elly noticed right away Liz didn’t seem shocked, or even surprised.

  “See … you can feel it, too. Some kind of ‘wrong’ I just can’t put my finger on,” said Elly.

  They drew closer as their words came out quieter, the unspoken things now out in the open. This is what it feels like to have a friend, thought Elly. She looked back upon the months she’d been here. Getting to know Liz. Remembering her as a little girl. She thought about painting the mural with her, laughing about Anthony’s goofy and spectacular love. Telling Liz about her engagement as they walked together to church and her screaming in delight. Reminiscing about the days at Playland. And it was true, Liz had changed, grown serious, older, and pale.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Well, I might be getting sick or something,” said Liz. “It’s you I’m worried about. Here, turn over and lie down on your left side.”

  “Why? I’m spoken for, you know!” joked Elly.

  “Just do it!” laughed Liz.

  Elly smiled, glad to see Liz spunky again. She turned over as Liz scooched in close, putting her hands on Elly’s stomach.

  The baby started kicking furiously.

  “How did you do that?” Elly squealed in delight.

  “Your heart is on the left side. When you place your body on the side of your heart the blood shifts. It wakes up the baby.”

  “Thank you, Liz,” said Elly.

  “You are welcome.”

  A quiet fell between them, the soft whir of the fan lulling them into comfortable silence.

  “Liz?”

  “Ummmhmmm?” answered a sleepy Liz.

  “I know you and I were friends here … when I was ten. And I have most of those memories back now, thank God. Drips. They came like Chinese water torture … And I remember you from the time before. The time when it was just Carmen and me. And I don’t know how that can be, because I didn’t know you yet. Did I?”

  Liz paused a moment. “I think I met you when you got here … and you probably had an imaginary friend before that. Maybe you just made her into me, or vice versa. No matter, really. And when you came back, when you were thirteen? For that short visit? I got to see you then too.”

  Elly rolled over, bouncing the bed like Aunt Fee … and faced her friend. “Ha! I got you! I didn’t see you when my mom brought me back here that Christmas! I remember everything about that night. Carmen got drunk. She didn’t want to come back. But she’d made a trip to India and the yogis told her to make peace with her past. I swear she never forgave the whole damn country of India for that fiasco. And I fell in love with Anthony … and I fell in love with this whole place, really. But not you. I don’t remember you.”

  Liz turned even paler and looked at the ceiling. She covered her hands with her face, sighing. “Oh yeah,” she said.
“I watched through the window…”

  “Why didn’t you come in?”

  “You weren’t there long enough. By the time I got up the nerve to knock on the door you were gone.”

  “Yeah, Carmen wanted out of that situation so badly,” said Elly. “I wish I’d seen you then. You at thirteen would have been fun…”

  “Me at thirteen? Lord. I was nothing but an open wound.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Maybe all girls are,” said Liz.

  “Maybe,” Elly said, yawning.

  “How about we take an afternoon nap? It doesn’t get any lazier than that,” suggested Liz.

  “Yes. Let’s. How about you sing me a song. Like I remember from when we were little?”

  “Sure, glad to … Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anybody else but me, anybody else but me, anybody else but me…”

  And in the moment between sleep and awake, when one realizes great things and believes they’ll be remembered forever but never are, Elly Amore realized Liz never sang her that song when they were ten and playing on the beaches of Far Rockaway. She sang it to her when Elly was very small, in Europe, with Carmen.

  * * *

  Later when Elly woke, the memory was gone and so was Liz. She went to the dressing table and opened her diploma. They’d sent it to her early when she filled out the papers saying she wouldn’t “walk.” A hard blue case and a beautiful piece of paper. A real accomplishment. She held it down and lifted up her pajama top just above her belly button. Elly was convinced her baby could see out from that one spot, like a periscope. “See this, baby? Mommy did a good thing!” And the baby kicked.

  Elly tried not to think about how Carmen hadn’t called. But she knew Carmen was just being Carmen. And that Elly wasn’t on the top of her list of priorities right now. A heavy feeling, the blanket of sad that always accompanied Elly remembering that she had a mother who she missed and loved began to descend. A note came flying under the closed door and across the shiny wood floor stopping at the fringe of the Persian rug.

  She loves you even if she doesn’t know it. Be strong. Give your baby the love you feel you never got. You’ll heal that way. Don’t make the same mistakes, make different ones. We all make mistakes … no need to compound them!

  “Thanks, Aunt Itsy!” Elly yelled at the door.

  “She can hear you, she’s not deaf you know!” yelled Fee through the door.

  “You birds sure can hover,” said Elly.

  * * *

  The next day Elly moved into apartment 2B with Anthony. Mimi and Fee gave their approval even as Itsy growled in the background.

  Anthony knelt down and put his head against Elly’s stomach. “And so we begin our lives, little one.”

  Elly knotted her fingers in his thick black hair and threw her head back in happiness, laughing. A sound that bubbled up like champagne. A new sound. An old sound. The laugh of the Amores.

  * * *

  Itsy watched them bring things up and down from the trunks in the attic. Cooper was coming, she could feel it. She’d have to move the trunk soon. It was all happening. Unfolding like a Venus flytrap in the sun. Time was running out.

  Summer

  25

  Itsy

  The forgetting spell is tricky, but popular. When we were little and the winter set in, there’d be a stream of people who’d come to the 170th Street apartment so Mama could cast their bad memories away. There are a few ways to do it. Some more powerful than the others.

  If you want someone to forget something without them knowing, you need pine syrup and Valerian root powder mixed with something else. A conduit. Some flavor powerful enough to mask the strong flavors of the botanicals. Garlic works well. Tomato, too. And then you have to concentrate on what you want them to forget, and you have to be specific. If you aren’t specific you could wipe out a whole chunk of thoughts never intended to be lost. And this only works until the person is reminded of whatever it is they forgot. Then it’s all over. Whoosh! The memory returns.

  If you want to forget something yourself, you can wish it away and drink a cup of Mama’s special tea. She labeled it “Loss” in a tin in the kitchen. (Mimi still has that tin with Mama’s writing on it.) Again, this spell is only as strong as your resolve. It’s weak with heartache because no matter how much someone thinks they want to forget a lost love, they don’t. I know this for a fact. I know it because I tried.

  The most binding forgetting spell is one where you are desperate to forget something. It’s the simplest one of all. No teas or tinctures or sauces required. Just a witch and a wish. Those spells are the hardest to break, even when you want them broken.

  Mama taught us her magic like she taught us to walk. As if it were the most normal thing in the world. She couched it in sayings like, “Everyone has different talents,” and “Strange things happen everyday, we’re no exception.” And through it all, through the removal of curses on midnight on New Year’s Eve; through the endless recipes for herbal remedies and gardens full of magical ingredients; nothing about what we learned scared us. It all seemed as right as rain. Except the Forgetting spell. That incantation went against everything Mama ever taught us. And in that respect, we feared it.

  It was a base art. Something only uneducated people (meaning those who didn’t understand the concept of loss) would do.

  Mama understood loss. She knew we needed it in order to feel fully alive. She pitied the people who came to her for the forgetting spell.

  And we never used it. Not even when we could have to ease our own sorrows.

  And when I finally had to use it, I had no idea how powerful it was.

  Each day, I learn. And each day, I wonder.

  But sometimes the Forgetting spell needs to be used for protection. Sometimes not remembering can keep us safe.

  Of course, Mama would disagree. But I’m only half Green, and she always seemed to forget that about her children. There’s an obstinate Italian side, too. Magic angry people. What a mixture!

  26

  Elly

  “I need some Valerian root for the “Loss” tin. Elly, can you go to the Chinese market and buy some?” called Mimi from the kitchen. She was rummaging—half annoyed—and clanging about as she took inventory.

  Elly loved to walk through the streets of the Bronx. The odd, old-fashioned pragmatism of New York’s ways fascinated her. People who didn’t live in the city always thought about it on two ends of the spectrum, magnificent and forward thinking, or dark and violent. But Elly was learning the truth. New York was the keeper of all things good. Old ways and new ways gathered together in a perfect hum of logic. She promised herself when she was no longer pregnant, and could string two thoughts together properly, that she’d create a series of street paintings.

  “I’d love to, Mimi,” she said. “Is there anything else you need?”

  “I could use some cat’s eye marbles. But I don’t know where you’d find them. George had boxes of them but Anthony got rid of all that. That boy. I swear. He’s so good about most things until he thinks of you, and then his sense jumps out the window.”

  “There’s a flea market today on Fordham Road. I can go look around if you want.”

  “Don’t tire yourself, love. You’re getting on in this pregnancy now.”

  “Join the twenty-first century, Mimi. Some mothers-to-be are running marathons.”

  Mimi turned around and shooed away Elly with her hand.

  Elly chose to walk out into the back garden and leave through the gate. The garden was in full bloom now. It brought delight to every single sense that Elly had—especially the sixth one that she was quickly developing.

  Studying Margaret Green’s book gave her a constant litany of facts about the plants.

  Geranium for knowledge

  Echinacea for health

  Lavender for luck

  Chamomile for calm

  Pine for forgetting

  She chanted slowly in her head as she walked by each pl
ant. She moved quickly, though, because there was always the lingering fear that if she stood too long in one place in Margaret’s garden that her feet would take root and she’d be a rosebush in no time.

  The gate squeaked open and Elly stepped out onto the back streets of the Bronx.

  “Hey there!” said Liz, suddenly right in front of her. She seemed to step out of the sun.

  “Hey! I’ve got some errands to do, want to join me?”

  “Gladly. I’m bored, hot, and tired,” said Liz.

  “And invisible. I didn’t even see you when I opened the gate.”

  “You had sun caught in your eyes.”

  “I guess, or else it’s just this crazy pregnancy. I need to keep my mind occupied on other things.”

  The two young women headed toward Fordham Road.

  “What kinds of things are you thinking about?” asked Liz as they walked.

  “Well, I’ve decided that if I figure out Itsy’s secret, I’ll be able to see my baby. It’s the one thing still blocking my view.”

  “Okay, so how do you want to figure it all out?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think straight.”

  “Have you ever thought about going to Fairview?” asked Liz.

  “Fairview?” Elly asked, confused. Then she remembered Mimi’s story and the information Anthony gave her about Margaret Green. “You’re right! Fairview,” she said. “Let’s go!”

  “Right now?” asked Liz.

  “Yes. I’ll go back and tell Mimi I have something else to do and we’ll take Georgie’s car.”

  “Ooohhh, sounds like an adventure!”

  “Hey, Liz?” asked Elly as they walked back through the garden gate.

  “Yes?”

  “I hope…” Elly stumbled on the words.

  “What?”

  “I hope that there isn’t one memory with you in it that gets left behind. I want to have our whole history.”

  Liz winked at her and walked ahead, up the back porch, opening Mimi’s apartment door. “Well, then! Right this way, m’lady! Let’s get to rememberin’.”